Assessing the Quality of Acoustic Environments and the Costs of Noise

The National Park Service is required to protect and restore acoustic resources, treating them as physical resources like air, water, and geologic resources. Monitoring data from more than 50 locations document extraordinarily low background sound levels that can exist in many remote locations and the pervasive impact of noise. At many sites, noise is audible about one-third of every hour between 0800 and 2100 hours.

Kurt Fristrup, Senior Scientist for the Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division of the National Park Service in Fort Collins, will address how flexible biological responses are to noise and whether those responses are consequential.